


Pontmercy (adj.)

by spacestationtrustfund



Series: Marius & Courfeyrac (& Cosette) [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Pontmercying, linguistics shenanigans, obligatory jokes about Neoclassical/Romantic riots & fisticuffs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 11:45:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9383561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacestationtrustfund/pseuds/spacestationtrustfund
Summary: Marius had done his best not to dwell for extended lengths of time upon the syndrome that was Les Amis de l’ABC; he, being somewhat distracted by the allure of the mysterious girl in the garden, whose identity he yet found himself unable to unearth, realised nearly a month later that he had been interred in his work and his dreams, and had neglected his friends.-The sequel toPontmercying,kind of.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted as a minific [here.](http://spacestationtrust.com/post/156055183136/yes-a-sequel-to-that-verb-fic-would-be-amazing)

Marius had done his best not to dwell for extended lengths of time upon the syndrome that was Les Amis de l’ABC; he, being somewhat distracted by the allure of the mysterious girl in the garden, whose identity he yet found himself unable to unearth, realised nearly a month later that he had been interred in his work and his dreams, and had neglected his friends.

It had been nearly a year and a half since Marius had left the home of his grandfather and his aunt, and although he still had moments of irrational anxiety, thinking about what his grandfather would say when he turned up on their doorstep, and how his aunt would cuff him about the ears – although he still had to reassure himself, at times, that he was a newly free man, inhibited by nothing but his own shortcomings, and held by back by none save for himself – he still found himself flinching away when Courfeyrac touched his arm absently, or he saw a stranger in the crowd of a certain height, a certain build, a certain temperance, etc.; despite all this, Marius decided that he was positively flourishing. He was a new man, worthy of friendship, and love, and a proper life.

The issue remained that, being in the company of friends, he had needs to keep them; Marius had never had friends before, and hardly knew how he was to go about such a task. It was easy for Courfeyrac, or Bossuet, or Bahorel, or even Grantaire; they, unlike Marius, _belonged_.

Courfeyrac did not force him to attend the meetings carried on by l’ABC in the back room of the Musain, or in the Corinthe, but when Marius steeled his nerves and inquired, face blushing furiously and voice shaking despite his best efforts, as to when the next meeting would be, and where, Courfeyrac took his arm amiably and informed him of the necessaries.

“It is good to see you, Marius,” said Bossuet, pressing his hand warmly, when Marius entered the back room of the Café Musain, lagging behind Courfeyrac and feeling somewhat like a small child clinging to the skirts of his mother. “It’s been, what, a month? Damn! What have you been up to? – off with some girl, perhaps?”

“He has been Pontmercying, undoubtedly,” Grantaire broke in, stepping past Marius and Bossuet to enter the room. “Where have you been Pontmercying recently, my friend? Have you Pontmercied from the streets to the taverns, to the parties, to Sceaux, perhaps, to find some pretty laundress or barmaid, some serving-girl to cure you of your absent-minded Pontmercying? Have you Pontmercied to the quais or the rues, to visit the common people, to learn of the more simple of the human activities – survival? Survival is all one can ask for, my Pontmercying friend, although there are always those who demand more, more. Ah! we are all animals, Monsieur, and we think we deserve more than we have been given by God. If God had meant to give us a higher ability, He would have given it, and made it easy. Work is meaningless; every creature, from the noblest of lions to the lowliest of worms, must work – the bird, soaring high above, must work, just as the toad, burrowing in the mud, must work. And so we do, perpetually, winding up the mechanisms for another go. This way, that way; off we go again, starting a new day or a revolution. It all revolves about the centre. And so, have you been working? Have you been Pontmercying? Have you been doing both, as the best of us do? You must not settle for one, Monsieur, that is terribly limiting.”

“I – have been studying,” Marius stammered, quite unsure of what to say.

Joly, who was seated next to Courfeyrac, looked up. “Ah! the elusive Pontmercy! I hope you have not been ill.”

“He _has_ been feeling ill recently,” Courfeyrac admitted gently, taking Marius’s arm again and leading him fully into the room, “and has been rather busy, so you must excuse his absences.”

“Feeling ill!” Grantaire’s laugh was harsh and clipped. “He has been feeling rather Pontmercy.”

“I suppose so, yes; that _is_  my name,” said Marius, for lack of something better. He felt horribly wrong-footed.

Joly beamed. “What are the symptoms of being Pontmercy, hm?”

“Feeling Pontmercy, that is, being in love,” said Grantaire loudly, “characterised as all pathogenic maladies, by a quickening of the pulse, and imbalance of humours, a case of melancholia, a fevered brow, a flushed cheek, and an addled brain. In short, you are ill, you are out of sorts, you have much of the spleen. You would do well to find yourself a drink to calm your nerves.”

“I never said I was in love,” muttered Marius, feeling himself blush again.

Courfeyrac encircled his arm with his fingers and squeezed gently. “If one feels particularly Pontmercy, is there a cure?”

“No cure, Pontmercying is incurable, one can only pray and hope for the best. Now, feeling Courfeyrac is not only curable but also preventable, and the cure is, a good night’s rest, preferably alone, with a warm cover; the preventative, however, is, as it would seem, simply to avoid women altogether – that is, if one must Pontmercy, one cannot by definition Courfeyrac. The two are never in conjunction.”

“As stars are opposed, such syzygy can be remedied,” murmured Prouvaire, catching on to the conversation. “Two opposites can be in conjunction and yet never cross paths. Parallel lines instead of perpendicular, yet defined by their relationship to the other no less.”

“Yes,” Grantaire concluded, “but one cannot feel both Pontmercy _and_  Courfeyrac. It is simply not done.”

“One can, however, feel slightly Bossuet and slightly Joly,” added Joly, almost dreamily, “although, it’s possible to mistake feeling Joly, with coming down with a cold.”

“One could feel Bahorel,” Bahorel added, leaning brazenly against the table; “I, for one, attempt often not only _to_  Bahorel, but to _feel_  Bahorel. There are many ways for a man to be done.”

“Or a woman,” agreed Grantaire. “Ah, and one could feel Feuilly, although it might be hidden in the foliage of a metaphorical fire. One could feel Prouvaire, a feeling that is more like an emotion, and an emotion which is often mistaken for Romanticism. Let not yourself be Prouvaire when in the presence of the artists of the second quarter, those who take after David or Gros, who call themselves the Neoclassicists. It would not be wise to bring two _such_  opposites into _such_  conjunction.”

“They say that opposites work well together,” said Prouvaire absently.

Marius took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. He still felt horribly out of place, ostracised not only in terms of the political but also in terms of the social; he could no more keep up with the conversations of Les Amis de l’ABC than he could keep up with the habits of the mysteriously elusive girl whose identity he was still lacking. His own speech seemed coarse and uneducated, even compared to those of l’ABC whom he knew were worse off than he; it was mainly the fact that he found himself unable to be so eloquent, for even those who did not normal declaim to a crowd, seemed to have an inane ability to bring forth rhetoric. 

Courfeyrac had leaned forwards, elbows propped upon the table. “How would one be Courfeyrac?” he asked, addressing Grantaire, who scoffed.

“Ask someone who knows, I am no expert – I can of course only speak for myself, for I know nothing more, and barely that in of itself. _Je ne sais que je ne sais rien_  – the more things change, the more you know. You, Monsieur, would know how to feel Courfeyrac, for you are Courfeyrac. I would only know how to feel such emotions that I myself have felt, and can say with the confidence of Byron that I surely cannot be feeling Courfeyrac in the slightest, for I have seduced no woman.”

“One would not guess so, from hearing you speak,” Courfeyrac murmured, then brightened. “We have determined how someone would feel Pontmercy, Courfeyrac, Prouvaire, Bossuet, Joly, Bahorel, Feuilly – what of Combeferre? What of Enjolras?”

“A man can only feel Combeferre after going a fortnight without a proper night’s sleep, having wandered the streets at an ungodly hour for the purpose of _observing the stars_ , found rocks upon the streets and broken them open to search for precious stones, spent hours poring over old tomes in search of errors in the academic locus classicus, wasted nearly half a day in meditating upon the natures of humanity, and then passed an hour or so in furious contemplation of the mechanisms of a steam-boat. After such a series of excursions, it is likely that any man to survive such an ordeal will feel very Combeferre indeed.”

“And Enjolras?”

“Enjolras transcends emotion; he cannot be felt tangibly,” said Grantaire decisively. “One can hardly confound the intangible with the real, Messieurs, for such meddling is the affair of scholars, which I have never claimed to be. He is unreal, beyond imagining, and thus cannot be reduced to something so _human_.”

There was a moment of silent contemplation, during which Marius finally got up the courage to speak.

“Is it – a bad thing?” he asked, biting back an inherent apology and cringe. “To feel Pontmercy.”

“Not at all,” said Courfeyrac kindly, and patted him warmly on the elbow.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr.](http://spacestationtrustfund.tumblr.com)


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